Khoeurt

Loan description:

Khoeurt Youm is 37 years old and married with five children, two sons and three daughters. The eldest is 18 and the youngest is 4. Khoeurt’s family live in O Kam Bot village in Ek Phnom district in Battambang province. She has been a member of Ek Phnom Credit Union for some three years now. Khoeurt and her husband, Ny Chhun who is 39, are farmers. They own two hectares of rice paddy and one pond. They grow rice during the rainy season. During the dry season, they grow watermelon, maize or green beans on the same land. The problem is sufficient water during the dry season. If they could have more water then obviously their yield during the dry season would be much higher. They already have one pond, but have decided to borrow money from the credit union in order to finance the digging of a another pond where water can be stored from the rainy to the dry season. In addition to being a reservoir of water, they hope to stock fish as well thereby providing them with another source of food and income. During the last dry season, they earned $900 from selling fish caught in their first pond. Khoeurt also plans to buy a threshing machine for the rice next year. She intends to repay the loan over four months.